BY LEILA

November 20th is the 96th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. The three events that took place in San Cristóbal de las Casas on this anniversary speak to the variety of ways that different Mexican social groups relate to history as well as the disparate ways that they place emphasis on the revolutionary context. For some Mexicans, the anniversary of the revolution is a simple day of celebration. These people dedicate a slew of parades and fiestas to the commemoration of a glorious history and foster a deep sense of national pride. For other Mexicans, the day of commemoration is a site of ongoing struggle. The multiple and deep social inequalities, the poverty, malnutrition, illiteracy and lack of access to basic health and education services that many Mexicans still live, as well as the illegitimate prosperity of Mexico's small upper class, and the fraudulency of the nation's so called "democracy," all become important sites of struggle on this day. From this perspective, the revolution is not over in Mexico. History is but a site of inspiration and strength for the revolution that is still being lived.

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The day begins with poms poms and school girls dressed in traditional colonial Mexican garb. The centre of San Cristobal is impassable, the dense parade in celebration of the Mexican Revolution winding around the city's central blocks. School children are followed by men on horseback who are followed by dancing troops, all assembled to commemorate the rich and multiple histories of this country - indigenous, campesino, colonial and revolutionary.

A mass of children and men dressed as Emiliano Zapata pass by San Cristóbal's historic centre in a haze of firecracker explosions, their identical paste on mustaches curved up at the ends, sombreros titled forward into the sun and plastic rifles lifted into the air with childish hands. The urban mestizo crowd smiles delightedly. "Zapata Vive!" the children, an exclamation which is both a surprising and non-sequeter cry from what appear to be affluent urban children in the midst of a community parade.

Emiliano Zapata, who was the commander of the Liberating Army of the South and a key personality in the 1910 Mexican Revolution, is also the man from whom the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN in its spanish initials) take its naming inspiration and the man whom all of the radical social struggles of Mexican invoke.